The chief executive of Deutsche Bank has issued a stark warning about the impact of technology, saying a “big number” of his staff will lose their jobs as robots take over.

John Cryan told an audience in Frankfurt: “In our bank we have people doing work like robots. Tomorrow we will have robots behaving like people. It doesn’t matter if we as a bank will participate in these changes or not, it is going to happen.”

He also referred to accountants inside the bank who “spend a lot of time basically being an abacus”, who would also be replaced by machines.